


These Safe Shores

by meandmysarcasm



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Love, Nightmares, Recovery, Support, Trauma, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-08 05:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6840535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meandmysarcasm/pseuds/meandmysarcasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle's dreams are infused with nightmares. Each night since the curse broke, she remembers her imprisonment by Regina and the years she spent locked in the SB asylum. Rumple doesn't know how to cure her, but he's determined to support her and chase away the bad dreams. Switches between Belle's and Rumple's POV throughout.</p><p>My idea of what might have happened with Rumbelle between the curse breaking and the return of Emma and Snow in Season Two. I've kinda lengthened the timeline, but I wanted a story that addressed Belle's recovery.</p><p>Trigger warning for mental health and trauma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter: The Knight

A scream fragmented his dream.  
Rumplestiltskin jerked awake and on to his feet before it ended. The cry echoed in his ears as he threw on a robe and hurried into the hallway. It was all the more terrible because it sounded so familiar. He hated that he couldn’t move fast enough, that his leg hindered him and prolonged her fear.  
Belle.  
He crashed into her room, throwing open the door so hard that it banged against the wall. Belle lay in her bed. Her hair tangled around her face just as the sheets snarled around her torso. Rumplestiltskin sighed.  
Every night, they returned to this moment. And he loathed it. Not because she woke him with her nightmares, but because he couldn’t fix them. Rumple couldn’t just wave his hand and make them better. Even Archie said it would take months of treatment, maybe years. Each time Rumplestiltskin thought he could fix his world with his magic, he was reminded that he couldn’t produce happy endings for the people he loved; that they paid the price for his affection.  
So, back to this then. The bedroom heavy with the feel of her fear and with his simmering anger. He watched as she curled up into a ball and whimpered.  
This image would haunt him for his very long life.  
“Hey…hey,” he murmured.  
*  
Once upon a time there was a woman who lived in a dungeon.  
The walls were high, too high to climb. A single window let in a scrape of light, but it too was set far above her head. The woman spent most of her time on the slab of stone she called a bed and dreamed of other worlds.  
She dreamed of talking trees and forest paths, until she could trick herself into smelling sap and cedar wood. She dreamed of mermaids and cities hidden underground, where no man could venture.  
But most of all, she dreamed of Her Handsome Hero. The woman didn’t know why her mind kept returning to this idea, but of all the dreams she discarded over the years [worn out from being handled once too often] this one remained intact. She only needed to close her eyes to conjure up the vision. And when she did, she dreamed of an evil witch whose laugh sounded like a crow cackling. The witch locked up her enemies and taunted them through bars. Though the woman couldn’t remember doing anything wrong, she knew this is why she lived in the dungeon.  
She only needed patience. For she knew within her heart that he would come and save her. Her hero. A knight in shining armour who would vanquish the witch and throw open the cell door and rescue the woman. And they would ride off into the sunset on his gallant steed.  
Ahh, if only it would come true. The woman sat on her bed for hours on end and imagined what her life would be like if such heroes existed. What it would be like if a world existed outside of these four walls.  
When the door swung open and the man escorted her to freedom, it was not the knight from her dream. This man was strange, dressed in odd clothing and an ever odder smile.  
But it didn’t matter, because he whispered everything she needed to know in her ear. If her knight would not come to her, Belle French would go to him.


	2. Enter: The Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumple struggles to accept how powerless he is to stop Belle's nightmares, but he's determined to keep her safe.

Belle French had forgotten how many times she had dreamed of this knight.  
“Hey…Hey.”  
“Rumple?” she murmured, still with her eyes closed.  
*  
Frowning, he touched her shoulder. He kept the contact light, little more than a ghosting of his fingers. She fidgeted and let out a noise that stirred up Rumple’s anger again. He didn’t need to see the future to know that Regina Mills would pay for this. He would inflict a wound for every year that Belle spent locked up, both in the Evil Queen’s castle and in the asylum. It would never be enough, but he needed this revenge like he needed air to breathe.

He could wait though. All of these years, he’d waited and waited. Now his patience wore thin. But there were more pressing matters to deal with.  
Belle’s eyes opened. They were wide and panicked for a moment, until they flicked over his face and realization dawned. He stood over her now, his face a mask of emotions, all of them painful to look at.

“It’s okay, Belle,” he said. His voice sounded burred with feelings. “You’re safe. You’re home.”

Home. Belle reached out and twitched her fingers over his wrist. Letting him know that she was back again, here in this room. Rumple smiled at her, though his heart felt close to breaking. 

How had they ever gotten to this? Belle, held hostage out of spite for longer than she’d been free while Rumplestiltskin lived in misery, listening to the news of her supposed death over and over again. Each day would start the same: he would shower, shave, dress and drink coffee in his kitchen and think about everyone lost to him.

He never drank tea. It tasted like ash in his mouth.

Until now. Now, everything he treasured seemed within his grasp. But it kept slipping through like sand and he couldn’t figure out how to hold onto the grains. When Belle returned to him, Rumple thought that perhaps over time they could salvage the strange, clandestine relationship that had begun to blossom between them before the curse. She remembered him, after all. That meant something.

He would hold on to that hope. Even if their lives were now filled with nightmares and counselling sessions, with tense smiles and fleeting kisses. Rumplestiltskin understood that it would take time to heal Belle, and he would wait as long as she needed, but he couldn’t stand that he couldn’t protect her from this.

Except that he would find a way. God help him, he would do everything in his power to make Belle feel better. Even if that only meant holding her hand in the middle of the night when she woke screaming, or brushing his hand through her hair to remind her that she wasn’t still in that cell, that she was here instead. Safe with him. Home.

And when all of that didn’t work, he would pull up a chair and tell her stories to whittle away the hours until dawn.


End file.
